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A series of six found poems derived from “Agency, Disability, and Atonement” by J. Mark Olsen. 

I. Sunday School Psychotherapy for the Bipolar: a found poem with Daddy issues 

He is a good parent. But there is not enough space
in the boat for all of us heroic cowards. I need an excuse. 

Some are left in the psychological current, bound
in Kantian irons and a counterintuitive duty to live. 

I struggle against the force of God’s headwind, 
blown by the irrational weight of his belief 

in divided kinds of persons. He demands these 
differences: good and skew, level and mood, function 

and desire. I want to be committed, but the delusional
damage is deep. It undercuts a moral stem, and atonement

is a drag. It takes a psychiatric Christ to repair disordered reason—
a borrowed weight to hold our bodies under, to heal

the subtle spots on our reality, the flaws of internal experience.
We need a physician against our false sense of rational acts, 

against the opposition of a parent incapable of seeing His
mistake; blind to the suffering attempts of all His broken children.

II. Kantian want ad for the ideal Mormon robot 

Required: 
complete persons 
who know they are greater
than others, separate,
differences clearly obvious. 

Those neatly labelled,
deserving of praise, sense 
damage, avoid others 
with questionable family 
history, social flaws, 
and poor genetics. 

Whatever the difficulty— 
filling their natural born character, 
as a matter of duty, and contempt
for excuse. 

Strong all-or-nothing persons, 
do not break down, know the way 
to flip the switch on mental snap,
face death—choose life. 

Finished persons keep their word 
will not abuse Christ with weakness 
are rationally categorical 
fulfill obligations 
and responsibility 
and responsibility 
and responsibility 
with no need to be forgiven. 

Good agents should answer
by writing a profound letter.

III. Intuitively wrong action 

Persons depress some tasks 
some tasks 
some tasks 
simply impossible. But then, 

much more much m ore 
much mo re 
difficult, without im po ssible 

imp oss ible 
imp ossib le. For instance, that person 
pers on 
p er son 
that person with 

a severe moral ob ligation to a let ter 
of th anks than ks 
of thanks to
a letter to a fri end. 

Further that the letter po ssib le 
p oss ible 
pos s ib le 
poss ib le 

po ssible for this agent, 
but only just. 

Ag ency 
Agen cy 
a gen cy AGENCY. 
in this case, might well restrict
altogether

the letter. 
The LE TT ER 
the LET TER 
l et te r 

possible, 
but very, very difficult. 

IV. Disabled Reason’s second attempt at writing a letter 

Friend, I give my word I am only just writing, radically constrained by the faces. Their contempt. How they stare because the saintly way exists in me. I am full of phenomenon, and they see. See all the weight of the second notion of roots? How the body does not break? I blame it on the rough calculation—the causes and the literal two-word continuum. I am writing. We are not limited by relevant history. The real elements further the purposes of the irrelevant interpretation, the labor of children born—brothers and sisters. We are all related to the literal hold of the body of the household, all in the family way, and we point to the heavy spots. What is right, Friend? I am writing this bit of soul making. The attempts not limited to ends of existence, to flaws that want to leave to body. I am locked in impossible outcomes. I see you struggle against the severe surrounding, the forces of sin—reflection. I see you. I see, Friend. It is as I say.

V. God speaks for Himself, for Lehi, and for Kant 

Some might be bothered that I could be 
interpreted as confusing. But I am 

the problem of space and time restrictions. 
The I AM nomenclature limited 

by empirical objects, the “ought.” There is 
no reflection; no “we” in the suggestion. 

What can a moral God do? The obvious: 
more and less. I weaken my infinite ability, 

advocating the cultivated struggle 
in a covenant demographic, creating types, 

a history of “oughts,” and certain kinds
of misguided mental tasks, however I must 

to mitigate my children’s agency, to get them 
to safety. I hold this responsibility— 

the commitment to opposition. That is 
my reason. That is my end.

VI. Christ contemplates atonement at the helm of the ship 

How does one will to rise against this body experience?
I have reason to question my ability to keep my word.
From here the way does not seem clear. 
We struggle, a family altogether blind, bound 

in certain death and blown on a severe current. 
I take up the least of God’s issue, and the greater—
brothers and sisters in reflection and all degree of character
—and we hold on. My duty, to keep course, maintain 

a mild state of hope, but some are more afraid 
to get into the boat than others. The evil is deep.
I have struggles of my own—a potential global loss;
difficulties making sense of this planning

even before the suggestion of the other 
above self. But the tremendous history of need—
the outcomes of these lost children more relevant
than all my weaknesses. It is hard to do the heavy act

of healing—the unforgiving attempts necessary to give
life, to make claim on the demands of their agent bodies,
separate sin from the soul, repair the absurd suffering
of madness to save purpose. 

Entirely difficult if not impossible. I point this boat of empathy
from captivity. I think I can see the way. By the time
it is finished we will arrive in more certain surroundings
as one, an equal household—all of us justly broken.